"Chief-Minister" of Gujarat. Since this book was written before the elections in Gujarat in December 2012, Narendra Modi will always be referred to as "Chief Minister" and not as Prime Minister of India, which he will become on 26 May 2014.

During his eleven years in power, he has succeeded in turning this western State of India into a model of development for the whole country.The results, obtained thanks to his enlightened governance opened to him the central government's doors at the time of central elections in 2014.

This first book perfectly reflects our wish to take another look at events or persons of whom we might have had an inaccurate perception. Narendra Modi is a living example of this.

The Chief-Minister of Gujarat is unknown to most of our compatriots and the rare information regarding him either comes from media generally based on a certain English-speaking Indian press or from intellectuals, whose hostility towards him is well known. " Narendra Modi - Leader and Man of Convictions " (the title of the first edition) endeavours to present to the readers this outstanding man who became the Prime Minister of India, someone the world had to learn to count with.

Who is Narendra Modi ?

He was born, shortly after Independence, in a family below the poverty line, in an underprivileged region in North of Gujarat. Endowed with a superior intelligence, he showed very quickly surprising capacities for a child. His deep interest for the spiritual matters and a profound love for his country soon pushed him to enter into social activities. At the age of seventeen, he left behind him his studies and family, to search for the Truth. After wandering for three years, most of the time in Himalaya, he returned to his native place, having taken the decision to devote his life to the Nation. From this point he dedicated his whole time and energy to the society.

By dint of tireless work, willpower and faith in life, he came up through the ranks, until he became in 2001 Chief-Minister of Gujarat, a State with sixty millions inhabitants, on the West Indian coast. From then on, he has applied himself to develop his State, which has become, under his governance, "the model State of India", privileged destination for investors.

However, the great industrial and agricultural leap forward is not the only success for Narendra Modi to be proud of. Beside this, he is very close to his people, remembering his roots. His work in terms of education (especially for girls), of healthcare and his strong will to empower the women, radically changed the face of the State and the everyday life of millions of Gujaratis.

Unanimously recognized as the best Chief-Minister of India, a tragic event nevertheless has come to upset his life, whose repercussions are still present in his political career. This drama has a name: Godhra, and a date: February 27th, 2002, when fifty-eight persons died burnt alive in a coach of the Sabarmati-Express, attacked by Muslim rioters. Three days of inter-community massacres had followed this event. Then, Narendra Modi had to undergo the assaults of the whole press and intelligentsia well decided to see him disappearing from the political scene and to make him a pariah to the eyes of the whole world.

And yet, for eleven years, despite all opposition, he has carried on what he considers as his mission for "his" Gujarat and the Nation. The fruits of his good governance widely went over his State’s borders, and in December 2012 on the eve of the elections in Gujarat, the last surveys placed him at the top of the personalities selected by the Indians to be their next Prime Minister in 2014.

This book invites you to meet this so controversial man, to follow his evolution, from his birth in one of the lowest castes, until today, on the eve of an election seen as crucial for his political future ; to get to know his philosophy and to discover the amazing results obtained in eleven years.

To write this book, the author has spent a long time in Gujarat and has collected many testimonies in very different layers of Gujarati society. Her encounter with Narendra Modi, in which she perceived an outstanding personality and her contacts with people whose lives changed dramatically thanks to him led her to want to share, through writing, this wonderful experience.

Her wish: that everyone can make his own opinion about the man, behind the caricature image conveyed for so long.